Sunday, January 04, 2004

the weekend has been a bit odd. i've left my home twice. once to visit Yosef ( brought him cheesecake, which reminds me, i still have a lot of it in the fridge), and the other time to go to the customs office. you can guess which one was more productive.

poor yosef, his legs are hurting him. they've had a good run, 88 years. he still gets around fine, but he's got another doctors appointment on tuesday. i told him that if he's there overnight he'd better call this time. *sigh* the elderly, won't they ever learn. It was a good visit though. He's writing an article about his experiences with arabs. It's quite interesting, because he's had exceptional relations with arabs over the years. He was the only Likud (Liberal party then) member to vote against retaining the west bank and gaza after '67. He's actually writing the article because he was thinking back and wondering why exactly he chose to vote against it, since everyone else was so for it. He says that it's because he was the only one that really grew up with arabs. But he doesn't believe that any peace can be made, he just thinks that Israel should get out of there. I can't argue with that. I took a look back at the Ayalon plan and, like the fence going up, it include the Jordan valley. Which means, the palestinians will have only an israeli border around them (not counting the slither of egyptian border in southern Gaza.

The problem? Israel is going to be responsible for supplying the enclosed "state." Yes yes, there are more problems. But they essentially stem from this one fact. Would it be better with a Jordanian border? who knows. What is known is that King Hussein will never accept a border with the Palestinians. (Black September kids, read up, it's fascinating).

*sigh* i feel a tangent coming on, so i'm just stopping in the middle. this way i can get to the funny story.

so i went down to the customs office so i could sign all sorts of neat paperwork (i get to buy certain stuff here tax free for making aliyah)...but guess who's on strike? that's right kids, everyone in the fucking country. you can't even call information because the phone company is on strike. the absurd part is, the only people that really get screwed here are immigrants because the strike really means that they wont take any applications. the vast majority of people that need to do things like hand in applications are immigrants. what the hell does a new immigrant know about politics here? can someone who just got off the banana boat from argentina or belarus really make a difference here? they're busy trying to find a black market job and learn the language. tapdancin jesus, wont you bring a bit of the first world here?

still, i'm in a good mood. Have been rotating between mellowing out to the likes of rufus wainwright and cat power, and rockin' out to an unnamed former boy-bander and 70's pop-rock. and yes, i am home alone. not that liron would mind, but she'd probably start to wonder. hmmm, cheese cake.......